Claiming an Empire
by An Elder Scribe
Summary: This is a "And What Happens After" story I've been wanting to write. It depends largely on the Dragonborn being a Nord, siding with the Imperial Legion, reuniting Skyrim under Imperial rule, and going on to defeat Alduin the World-Eater. It's an ongoing story with multiple chapters, which are as-yet unwritten. TESV: Skyrim is owned by Bethesda Softworks. This scenario is mine.
1. The Moot

Claiming an Empire

An Elder Scrolls Tale

By An Elder Scribe

Chapter 1: The Moot

Castle Dour, Solitude, Skyrim

20th of Last Seed, 4E 203

The courtyard before the entrance to the castle sat a-bustle, voices of Jarls and pages and courtiers alike filling the pleasant, seasonably cool air. Evidence of the Stormcloak attack on the capitol was still faintly apparent, the scars of magicka and arms left on the stone walls fading as time went on, repaired or forgotten and left to the elements. The brisk wind blowing over the northernmost granite shelf brought with it the scent of fresh change, reinvigorating the weariest of souls. High summer had arrived, and with it, the Moot.

Torygar Stormbreath himself, the Last Dragonborn, slayer of Alduin, Harbinger, Legate, Thane to all nine Holds, and student of the Way of the Voice, rode into the city limits, leaving his horse with the stable-hand at Katla's farm just east and south of the metropolis. With him walked Delphine, Grandmaster of the Blades' remnant forces. She was frowning, not unusual, given the occasion of their arrival. Her charge the Dragonborn, a tall, hardy example of the Nord people, walked as he had when setting off to Skuldafn, Alduin's roost. It was the stride of a doomed man, one determined to see an unpleasant event through to the end, and it unnerved her.

In inviting her to accompany him to the long-in-coming Moot, he had had the same mien and movement, determined to make the best of a situation not his making.

She spoke up as they made the halfway point from the city entrance to the castle's gate-arch, "Why did you drag me up here anyway? There's still more to do at the temple, and I can't afford to be away." She stopped, hand resting on the grip of her Akaviri katana, willing her charge to stand a moment and enlighten her.

"The Moot is an important event," the Dragonborn answered, not stopping or even slowing. "Doubly so since the end of the war. The people will want a sign of good tidings. I'm here to give it." Delphine watched him stride on, this man who had saved the world.

He was strongly-built, muscled to rival Ysgramor himself, by all accounts, possessed of a trueborn leader's confidence, and Divines-given talent for the Voice. The mixture of his dress seemed befitting an Imperial battle-mage, boiled leather and chain under plates of layered steel and dragon-bone, and draped over with a sleeveless greatcoat of deep-blue wool. A sword of Skyforged steel hung at his hip, its grip elongated to his designs. The man himself was youngish, no more than thirty years of age, shaven-headed, thickly-bearded, and with flinty steel-colored eyes peering out from the thunderhead of his worry-lined brow.

"We could use you back at the temple more often, too, you know," Delphine said, her voice jostling up and down the range as she jogged to catch up. "The recruits need you more than this lot does. Their bickering and voting for the new High King isn't worth the effort of listening." Torygar stopped, half-turning to watch her meet him in the street.

Slowly, in fits and starts, he smiled. "For a Breton, you're remarkably disinterested in politics. I'd have thought you'd have at least three of the Blades inserted into the throng of courtiers to provide intel."

"What makes you think I haven't?" she answered. As a matter of fact, she'd sent five spies to the Moot. Whatever her feelings about the day-to-day goings-on of Skyrim court life, it never behooved her to wade into something ill-prepared, especially where the Dragonborn was concerned.

"That's what I thought," he said, and continued on. "No matter the outcome, this is going to be one of the most important events of the Era. At least for Skyrim."

Delphine managed to frown more deeply. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"Later," Torygar said. They had arrived at the castle's outer gate. "It's time." With a word, Torygar passed into the throng, which quickly parted before him. It was like watching the prow of a ship cut breakers at high tide. Delphine followed in his wake, if only to keep from being separated from him by the crowd.

An observant herald standing by the table around which the Jarls all sat espied the Dragonborn's approach, calling forth, "Torygar Stormbreath, Thane of All-Hold!" Nine faces turned to watch him, their talk struck dead in their throats. A trio of them rose, but Torygar waved them down.

"Please, my lords, stay. I only wish to bless this Moot with a word."

Jarl Siddgeir's lips curled into a sardonic smirk. "Hopefully not one of your Shouts," he said, much to the laughter of the Jarls gathered. The Dragonborn laughed with them.

"Would that a phrase of dragon tongue could name the new High King and have done, eh?" His good cheer melted away as quickly as it arose, washed free of his face by whatever heavy feeling brought him here. Delphine knew that look and girded herself for whatever he had to say.

Jarl Idgrod of Morthal gave voice to Delphine's worry. "You've got something dire to say, I can see it." Her tone was airy, as if she were struggling to see the words themselves, pluck them out of thin air.

The Dragonborn nodded to the elder Jarl. "As ever your foresight serves you well. I come not only to bless the Moot, but to offer up a nomination for the High King's seat."

Maven of Riften thumped a hand on the great table, impatient. "Well, out with it. Give us a name, and we can all vote me into the Blue Palace already." This brought a loud but short-lived series of exclamations from the other Jarls. Torygar waved his hands at them, asking for quiet.

"Please, please, hear me."

"We hear you, Thane," Balgruuf said, hoisting a flagon. Though divided from the first upon which side to join during the civil war, the Jarl of Whiterun was one of Torygar's staunchest allies. The Dragonborn nodded to him in turn.

"The seat of High King is not one I would wish on anyone; to lead is to take a great burden on yourself," the Dragon born began. "You become responsible for and answerable to the whole of Skyrim. You must protect her and show her the proper respect, as much she would show loyalty owed to the Empire. It takes a warrior and a statesman, one willing to fight, or beat swords into ploughshares. She is the last great bastion, the only remaining friend to Cyrodiil, and she needs a guiding hand and will."

"There is only one person I can name who is ready to lead us all into a new Era."

The Jarls seated began speaking again at once, a chorus of "Who? Which of us? Give us a name!" and more. Delphine stood by, listening with the gathered courtiers, leaning forward as if pressed to a door, listening for the barest snatch of a whispered secret. The Dragonborn raised his hands again for quiet, finally lowering them when the Jarls all fell silent.

"I would be High King of Skyrim."

If the previous bout of questions and support was loud, now it was deafening, all nine men and women shouting to be heard over one another in a general formless clangor. The raised voices turned on one another yet again as the arguments either for or against the Dragonborn began in earnest. Torygar raised his head, face lifted to the sky, and Delphine knew what was coming.

"Fus…RO DAH!" Torygar Shouted. The air snapped with a boom as if Mehrunes Dagon himself had clapped his great and terrible hands, and the Jarls fell instantly still, hands clapped over ears and faces agape with wonder. Delphine, too, dug into an ear with her little finger, smiling at their collective gawping. It still amazed them that here was a real true-to-life wielder of the Voice.

"I have served you all in turn, aiding your Holds' people, protecting them from threats outside your walls and boundaries, and given you my pledge of fealty. I slew the World-Eater in Sovngarde. Had but Shor been there himself, he would have blessed me for my ambition, had he seen into my heart."

"Now I ask you to let me serve you further. I ask you to let me lead, and bring Skyrim into an age of peace and rebuilding of what has been lost. Name me High King, let me wear the Jagged Crown and prove the strength of our loyalty for one and all. I am done."

They all stood or sat, staring at him, Delphine as much in shock as they. This she hadn't been…entirely expecting. Dragonborn were, by nature and tradition, leaders of a most singular stripe, but every action and indication on Torygar's behalf had given no sign that he'd had designs for the throne of Skyrim. From the gathered courtiers, a voice rang out, "Torygar! Dragonborn, King! High King!" And with that, they all took up the chant.

The Jarls looked at each other, all, silent and bewildered. The Dragonborn turned to the throng, raised his hands. All of them fell quickly still, and he turned back to the Moot. It was Balgruuf-of course it was-who spoke up first.

"We will have to deliberate this further, All-Thane," he said. "This matter bears more discussion."

Torygar nodded. "I understand. I'll leave you to it. Decide, and send for me. I'll be at the Skeever." With that, he turned and entered the swiftly-opening crowd. Delphine once again followed, catching him just as the crowd began closing behind him. As they ambled down the switchback ramp to Castle Dour's courtyard, the arguing began again, more subdued than before.

Delphine waited until they had both gained the Winking Skeever, settling in at a table set into a small alcove. Without even asking for them, a bar-wench delivered foaming mugs of mead, Black-Briar Reserve, naturally, compliments of the house for the Thane and his guest.

The Dragonborn took a single sip of his mead, nodding at its pleasing sweetness and after-burn. Delphine's pull was noticeably longer, foam lathering her lips as she murmured, conversationally, "Are you out of your ever-loving mind?"

Torygar simply smiled at her across the table, a calm, knowing grin. "No. I'm doomed. Dragonborn, remember?" Delphine's answering scowl left unspoken the question of how she could ever forget it. She simply glowered at him over the rim of her mug as she took another drink, halving its contents in the second go.

"Go easy. I expect we're going to be here a long while," Torygar said, still smiling at her.

"Honestly, what possessed you to do that?" she asked. "I'm really hoping I'm back at the Temple, knocked cold by one of the recruits by accident, and when I come to, this will have just been a bad dream."

The Dragonborn took another placid sip of his mead. "You know, for all her power-grabbing nature, Maven really has something here. A pity she didn't stick solely to brewing."

"Well?" Delphine growled, gripping the handle of her flagon tightly. Though iron, it would soon snap if she bore down on it long enough like she was.

"Like I said to the Moot, I want to serve. How best might I do if not as High King? I proved my worth to the whole country, despite my would-be terminal beginning." As he spoke, unhurried, unworried, the bar-wench who served them overheard him, and letting out a swift gasp, fled towards the bar.

"Perfect," Delphine said, draining her mead to the dregs. "Now the whole of Solitude is going to be talking about it before nightfall, if they aren't already."

"Tongues wag and the commonfolk have something to discuss among themselves. Let them. If they support me, too, all the better. If not, I'll go back to the mountain and live out the rest of my days as a Greybeard. Happily, even."

"You know that won't be happening," Delphine said. She sat up straight, looking down at the table between them, trailing a fingertip through a ring of moisture left by her mug. "There's still the Blades to keep up and running. You're responsible for that much, too."

"Believe me, I have no intention of letting the Blades stagnate and die slowly again," Torygar said, sitting back. He threw his arm over the chair's back, looking for all of Nirn like a man without a care or worry at all. "In time, they will be whole and prepared."

Something about that troubled Delphine. "Prepared for what?"

"For whatever threatens the Empire," the Dragonborn replied. "It lies in everyone's interest that the Blades regain strength and the public's not-too-public trust." He said this low, barely above a relaxed murmur. Delphine studied him for a moment, trying to peel away whatever under-meaning he implied.

Suddenly she turned to the bar, raising a hand and snapping her fingers for the barkeep's attention. "Another Reserve!" she called.

"Two, if you please, Corpulus," Torygar followed up. "It's going to be a long day, I think."

They sat and drank and talked. When they grew a mite too inebriated, they ate, and drank and talked some more. Plans for Sky Haven Temple, potential recruits for the Blades, the state of the Empire, possible covert incursions by the Dominion, and of course, of dragons.

They were still being spotted, by swineherds and traveling merchants, staying well outside the boundaries of the Holds and their respective outlier hamlets. Delphine's concern that they were up to something had grown with each missive brought back to her from her green-behind-the-ears field-agents. No reports of attacks, just sightings. No farmers and their families turned up missing or burnt to a crisp. Merchant caravans fled from the swiftly-drifting shadows of them as they glided by overhead, but were left unmolested.

"That you let Parthurnaax live after I urged you to kill him is what's causing it, I'm sure," she said, her voice slurring slightly at the edges.

"There's still more I can learn from him," Torygar replied. "About the Voice. About what it means to be Dragonborn. About greater mysteries of the Divines and their agents, too, I suppose. And let's not forget the history and names of dragons I've yet to meet. And might perhaps need to slay."

"I still say that great old lizard needs killing, despite all that," Delphine grumbled, speaking into her mug.

"I'm no Breton, Delphine. Betrayal and intrigue aren't my tools and trade. They're yours."

"Justice isn't betrayal. He deserves to die for what he did."

"So you've said. He asked me something, once, when I was still new to the Voice. 'What is better-to be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?' There's no doubt in my mind that he would try to…dethrone me, if you'll excuse the word, and lead the remainder of his kind in another war, if he so chose. But there's no doubt, either, that he means to do well by us, and the Divines. As far as I'm concerned, his efforts to give Man insight to the Voice, by which we won the Dragon War, have absolved him. That's all I'm saying on the matter."

"Gods, I wish you'd say less about it," Delphine said. Torygar only chuckled softly.

"Given my inborn talent, silence would have been a bad business for us mortals."

It was fully dark now, and the door to the Skeever opened. A herald stood on the threshold, peering about the bar for a moment before spying Delphine and Torygar at their table.

"My lord Thane," he said, approaching. "The Moot has requested your presence at Castle Dour at your leisure." He extended a scroll to the Dragonborn, a rolled-up tube of vellum sealed with a blob of red wax. The sigil of Solitude was stamped into it. Torygar nodded, taking the scroll and breaking the seal. Delphine sat rigid as he read it.

"Thank you. I'll arrive shortly," Torygar told the herald, and finished the last of his eighth mead of the day.

"What does it say?" Delphine asked. The Dragonborn simply handed her the scroll. Unrolling it, she read: _We have decided. Come soonest. -Elisif_

"Sober up, Grandmaster. Let's go see what the Moot has to say."

End Chapter 1


	2. The Jagged Crown

Claiming an Empire

An Elder Scrolls Tale

By An Elder Scribe

Chapter 2: The Jagged Crown

The Blue Palace, Solitude, Skyrim

Early evening of 20th of Last Seed, 4E 203

The Orsimer went unnoticed as he walked the halls of the palace. He went about, calmly, stopping to study a tapestry or a frieze, contemplating the use of colors and shapes of the former, and the skilled handiwork of the latter. He was dressed as for a day at court, a fine suit of quilted cloth and doeskin denoting an appreciation of a semi-luxurious way of living. For the guardsmen in attendance, he had the very air of belonging, bothering no one and politely apologizing when straying into rooms off-limits to mere courtiers.

Holag gro-Ulghazh took note of those places he wasn't allowed, laying his hand against door-frames for a moment, admiring the woodwork, and moving on. His touch left marks on the door-frames, small sigils that passersby would take no immediate notice of, and wouldn't for the time being. Not until his work was done, at least.

The Moot could not have come at a better time, it seemed to Holag. He'd been casing the palace for nigh on half a year, testing locks and learning the schedules of guards through mere observation. That had been the easy part. The middling-difficult bit was of course getting into the grounds under the guise of an erstwhile noble. Because of the way he moved, like one both admiring and envying the opulent nature of the place as he waited his turn for an audience with the Jarl, he'd insinuated himself into the daily comings and goings, becoming a regular as it were.

With the Jarls all gathered at the Empire's sizeable fort in the city, and almost all the would-be supplicants for Elisif's attention tending to the needs of the Moot there, it seemed to be the best time to make a more overt move towards the true prize. Gliding silently, unhurriedly along an upper-level hall, he found an unoccupied room on the end farthest and one level down from where he was trying to get.

A large double-bed sat head-first against one wall, wardrobes and dressers lining those surrounding it, and a table and chairs between, laden with bowls of fruit, carafes of sweet red wines. Pushing the door nearly closed, he dropped into a crouch, producing a scroll from the purse-pouch that hung off his belt. Reading the inscription upon the vellum, he flexed the fingers of his free hand, drawing in the air with fingertips until a dark, eldritch energy formed under the gesture. A Daedric 'O' rune flashed to brief life and popped out of existence, and a massive frost Atronach stepped into Nirn where it had hung.

Holag gave it one simple instruction, and waited, crouched by the almost-closed door as it began battering the furniture to flinders. Loud crashes and cracks rent the air as it went to work; Holag was certain it would quickly attract attention. Chairs and table flew and shattered, the wood cracking under the tremendous force of its blows much quicker than he'd have estimated. A halloo went up as a single guard bolted the door open, took one step inside, had time for a single glimpse of the Daedric construct wreaking havoc within, and hollering, called up his fellows.

Holag had slipped out the moment the guard had entered, silent as unspoken sin, and ducking briefly into a shadowed corner as more guards ran past him without notice. The trek towards the opposite end of the floor was quickly made, and the Orc hadn't even had to sneak; the guardsmen in this particular part of the palace had all gone towards the sound of violence. They grew ever louder as the Atronach began battering the men in turn.

Up the final flight of stairs he sought, Holag entered the Jarl's own bedchamber. Rifling through more wardrobes and trunks than any one Jarl had any business having, he began to feel a prickle of urgency. The summoning spell wouldn't last forever, and with as many guards as went to kill the construct, it likely wouldn't last long, no matter how easily it threw men aside. Somewhere below, the sound of running feet could be heard, a voice shouting a command, possibly, and the noise of more stampeding coming closer.

Holag tore through all the trunks save for one, at the foot of the grand-sized bed. _No, that'd be too easy,_ he thought. He stared at it, though, studying the trunk and the carpet under it. Parts of the woven cloth looked discolored in places, as if someone had scrapped a heavy boot sidewise over it. Or, perhaps the trunk itself.

Bolting towards the last trunk, he heaved it aside, and began tugging at the carpet, now beginning to feel a sudden surge of anxiety. The air had gone momentarily quiet, and then someone shouted again from below-"…TOOR SHUL!"-in a language he couldn't understand. With a sudden violent jerk, the carpet flew up toward him, along with a section of floor that swung up on hinges. Within the shallow trap, a round, uneven bundle had been secreted. It looked as though someone had wrapped a bundle of daggers sat on end in a thick layering of white linen and hidden it.

Smiling, yellow eyes and yellower tusks glinting in the low candle-light, he reached for it, plucked it free, and leaped for the window.

The room was an utter shamble when the Dragonborn entered it; Solitude guardsmen lay either dead or knocked cold, furniture tossed about and broken everywhere, and among it all, a frost Atronach, meandering among the ruin of the room, seeming to patrol the square chamber. Drawing his sword and taking in a deep breath, he tilted his head up ever so slightly, letting loose with a Shout.

"Yol…TOOR SHUL!" Flame gusted from his mouth, enveloping the Atronach and melting its upper portion where the fire folded around and seemed to grasp it like a hand, consuming the rest. Delphine was quick on his heels, taking in the scene from behind with a practiced eye. Fallen guards lay heaped and strewn about, and a few were groaning and trying to sit up. The air was a mix of bitter cold and sweltering, momentary heat.

Elisif herself was soon to arrive, as well, a few other Jarls behind her in turn. "Someone, go get Rorlund!" she cried, turning back to survey the damage with the Dragonborn and Delphine. "What happened?"

"A pet of the Daedra was here, a frost Atronach, Jarl," Torygar said. Pointing to the puddle of water and scattering of frost salts with his sword, he indicated where it had dispersed. He approached, taking a knee to run his fingers through the remains. "Someone had to have summoned it." Rubbing fingers and thumb together, he wiped the mess from them on the lapel of his greatcoat, and rose.

As he spoke, more guardsmen arrived, as well as a pair of Imperial Legionnaires. Elisif turned to them, barking out, "Search the palace; bring me anyone you don't know." The guardsmen milled about, awestruck by the sight of the room before them, until a well-placed hiss from the Jarl sent them hence. "Now!" With much stomping and hollering of search-plans, they bumbled off.

Delphine looked at her charge, who stood with his head cocked, one ear tilted, trying to listen over the bacchanalia it seemed. He stood like that for a brief moment longer, turned towards the Blade, his eyes set in that familiar stern look he had. "This was a distraction," she said, not leaving it to the realm of question, but assertion. Torygar nodded. "Whoever did this waited until the Moot, I think."

Again, the Dragonborn nodded, re-sheathing his sword. Suddenly his face flew towards the ceiling. "The Jarl's chambers are on the floor above?" he asked. Elisif herself answered him.

"Yes, above and Arch-wards." She pointed vaguely in the direction of the eastern part of the sea, where the arch of stone upon which the Blue Palace sat hung far above the water. Torygar and Delphine shared a look, and both looped around Elisif, heading for the roundabout stairs that lead to the upper floor. As they gained the landing, it was Delphine who entered the chamber first this time, her katana in hand.

The room was in a similar state as the one below, with a marked lack of bodies and destroyed furniture. A trunk had been heaved aside and the safe-trap underneath flung up. She looked within, found it empty. Something on the floor nearby glinted faintly in the soft light, and another near that did the same; shards of glass littered the carpet. One of the windows had been broken out, the glass-lath crumpled and torn almost free of the sill.

Once again Elisif caught up with them, followed by a pair of guards. The Jarl's breath left her in a rush, a half-whimper half-plea escaping her, "No..."

"Jarl Elisif, what was in here?" Delphine asked. Pointing at the safe-trap the Jarl was staring blankly at, she moved towards the ruler of Solitude, sheathing her weapon as she went. "What was taken?"

It was as if the Jarl had not heard the questions, a scowl deepening the lines of her face as she wrung her hands together. Instead of answering she moaned, "I shouldn't have insisted that it be kept here, I should have listened to Tullius and left it in his care at Castle Dour." Again, the Dragonborn and the Grandmaster spared a look to each other. Torygar closed the distance between himself and the Jarl, alighting a hand gently upon her shoulder.

"Jarl, please, what was in that niche?" he murmured, his normally deep timbre a softer, soothing rumble. Elisif looked to him, tears threatening to fall, but like a good, strong Nord, she kept them still, unshed.

"Someone's taken the Jagged Crown."

In the darkness, unseen, unheard, and unknown, an Orsimer stalked. Into the depths beneath the Blue Palace is where he'd fled, taking care to break the window beforehand, leaving a clue to where he hadn't gone to throw off any pursuit. It had worked, for now, and the time the whole of Solitude's guards spent searching the homes and scouring the roads and paths out of the capitol was time the thief used well. They would never think that anyone crazy enough to break into the palace and make off with the Jagged Crown would stay around long enough to be found out, but as he'd proven before, he was no ordinary Orc.

Cradling the wrapped bundle against his side, he felt the points of dragon-teeth biting gently into his arm, the cloth dimpled by the fangs of felled dragons of old. He would just need to let the guards wear themselves ragged and eliminate any possible route he might have used to escape the palace. Moving from shadow to shadow, nook to crevice, he'd found his way into the cellars with haste. Not too much haste, of course, but just enough to keep from being caught out of hiding. If his source was correct, there would be a way from the cellar into the catacombs, a short but winding tunnel that led to an exit set into the inside of the arch below.

If memory served him, the door before him was all that lay between him and the solace of the catacomb; Holag could feel a faint hint of fresher air blowing in between the cracks. Touching his hand to the latch, he heard, distantly, the sound of approaching footsteps. They seemed to be deliberate, tentatively slow. For the tiniest moment, he was torn between remaining positively still, hoping that whoever was shadowing him, and that even poorly, would pass on by or, barring that, risking the noise of fleeing deeper into the palace's depths.

Above the sounds of footsteps, Holag though he'd heard someone mutter something, and again, louder, a man's voice, "They're down here somewhere." That decided him, right then and there. He wrenched the door open, the hinges squalling and creaking as it swung, and he plunged into the absolute darkness below.

The catacomb was a low-ceilinged short spiral, and he could feel the bite of wind growing ever-stronger as he wound down into it, followed by the stomping steps of heavy-shod feet and the scrape of steel on steel. Faint light could be seen as he wound his way to the end of the tunnel, growing brighter by degrees. The wooden slats of the door held fast as he slammed into them. Backing up, he gave it another, harder bashing with his shoulder and hip, and still it held.

Once more he crashed into the rusted-shut door, breaking the latch free entirely, stumbling to a stop on the small balcony before the doorway itself.

"Please, Malacath be good, let her be down there," he muttered, sparing a final glance into the tunnel's mouth. The sound of an approaching somebody grew louder, and without another moment's tarrying, he vaulted over the rail into space, plummeting towards the dark frigid water below.

The water rushed up to meet him, and old reflexes set in; crossing his legs, holding the wrapped bundle against his abdomen, he prepared to splash down into freezing black liquid. Something stopped him, however, then seemed to ease, like a fist carefully loosening the jesses of a horse's lead rope from between its fingers, and he slowed, and knew his source and employer had kept her part of the bargain. He was safe.

He saw the long rowboat at last, not a dozen yards from where he would have gone under the water, and the figure standing thereon. Her arms were raised and seeming to beckon to him, almost invitingly; he drifted towards the craft, descending slowly and feeling giddy the whole while he was pulled magickally in the direction of his savior.

There his employer stood, darkly-clothed, a long robe and hood obscuring her features save for her height. There was no disguising that.

"You got it," she stated more than asked. Her deep contralto voice, cultured and feminine, echoed faintly, bouncing back to them from the base of the arch.

"Of course I got it," Holag said, as if it were a foregone conclusion. "I think someone spotted me, though, but not well enough to get a look at my face."

"Fine, fine, that can be dealt with later," his employer said, impatience tingeing her words. Gloved hands reached out, silently commanding delivery of what she'd sought. Holag handed it over, then sank to his backside in the boat.

Holag's employer stood where she was, holding the bundle before the darkness under her hood, murmuring, "I'm surprised you weren't caught straight out, to be honest."

"That's the thing with humans, if you dress like them and say please and thank you, they don't pay you any mind. No one ever suspects a well-mannered Orc."

"No, I suppose not," his employer replied, her voice distant, distracted. Her hood turned towards him, and more loudly, she snapped, "Unless you mean to be caught, I suggest you start rowing, Holag."

With a snort the Orc turned the oars in their locks, dipped them into the water, and turning the boat north, did as he was told. That was the problem with taking jobs from an ambitious boss; stealing a country just wasn't ever enough.

End Chapter 2


	3. The Unfound Trail

Claiming an Empire

An Elder Scrolls Tale

By An Elder Scribe

Chapter 3: The Unfound Trail

The Sea of Ghosts, North of Winterhold

21st of Last Seed, 4E 203

Spires of ice thrust into the night sky, piercing the borealis that trailed and waved across the starry black like green ribbons, or perhaps waves rolling into the horizon as if it were a shore in itself. Wind skirled across the water, hissing and groaning between fissures in the faces of looming icebergs. A single small boat wound through the shattered remains of one such hulk, the rower sometimes rising to push troublesome chunks away with an oar.

Holag gro-Ulghazh began humming, the sound and the motions of his rowing falling into time with each other. It wasn't an unpleasant sound, but it was slightly out of tune, low registers too low and grating, high ones not high enough. His employer paid him no mind about it, sitting quietly before the gunwale. She was hunched, her usual straight-backed composure strangely absent. Studying the ruddy helmet was Holag's guess, immersed in whatever there was to see in a steel hat decorated with giant lizard teeth.

The Orc's humming progressed to singing, his burring voice making a mockery and murder of the tune: "Our hero, our hero claims a warrior's heart..."

"Shut up," the robed figure piped up. She sat unmoving, sounding irritated by the thief's choice of entertainment.

"I'm bored," he said, "And tired. I feel song-ish when I'm sleepy."

"Just keep rowing and mind your tongue. It's not far now."

"Easy for you to say. You're not the one who's been rowing this sodding boat all night long." Holag rowed a bit faster, his own irritation rising and lending him a burst of strength. At least the exertion drove the cold out of his bones.

The woman said nothing more, but seemed to stoop lower over her prize. Briefly Holag entertained the idea of braining her with an oar and tilting her off the boat into the ice-choked water. It would have been the simplest thing in the world. Distracted people were the easiest to get the drop on.

As if reading his thoughts, his employer sat up straight, stood in the gunwale, and stepped off the boat just as the prow struck the landing with a thump. Holag shifted forward, nearly tilting overboard himself, but righted himself as the craft dipped and bobbed, its hull grinding against the ice.

Muttering, he debarked, finding the dock-pile and securing the boat to it. The robed woman was already a dozen or more strides in front of him, heading towards the foot of an ice-peak. At its base, there was a frost-rimed cellar door bolted to the ice. With a gesture, she flung it open, expelling a gust of contained, stale air. Holag jogged up to join her.

The two descended into the abandoned sanctum. Sconces bolted to the ice held long-since-burnt-out torches, yet they seemed unnecessary. The artifact housed within gave off a constant and yet somehow diffuse illumination that filled the chamber from powdery floor to arched ceiling.

A massive cube of golden metal chased with streaks of green-tinted glass sat at the far end of the chamber; a bookshelf and a few pieces of useless broken furniture sat off to one side. The cube's face was set with a large circular portal, and a smoothly rounded tunnel of a dimension that seemed to defy all sensibility delved far past where one would assume the back end of the cube would be.

A distortion of light and substance filled the mouth of the tunnel. Holag's employer approached it, genuflected, and started intoning a spell. She got as far as "Herma-Mora" before the distortion quickly changed. With a crackle and a hiss, a writhing mass of tentacles filled the space of the tunnel. From its depths, a solitary pseudopod emerged, a long greenish-black limb that bulged into a rounded head. A slit opened at its tip, and Holag beheld a nightmare.

The black hourglass shape of an iris studied first the woman, and then the Orc, finally shifting back to the robed form closest. It was full of knowing. _Knowing._

From somewhere, nowhere, and everywhere, a voice flowed like honeyed mud, a smiling mouth full of suet forming distorted sounds that inexplicably became words. It was like no voice Holag had ever heard before, and he'd thank Malacath to never have to hear it again.

"Ahhhhh, welcome, mortal. You have come to a place of knowledge. Yet the prize is long gone." The voice seemed amused, yet there was a hint of disappointment in it. Did it feel so towards them? Were they courting disaster? Holag stood transfixed by that so-very-foreign eye, shaking not so much from the chill of the place as from the abyssal vastness in that eye's depth.

The woman pushed back her hood, revealing golden skin and eyes, and the sandy blond locks of an Altmer. Ambassador Elenwen's face was drawn into a pinched scowl. Her High Elven features had taken on a worn look, the faint beginnings of crow's feet bordering her eyes and prominent frown-lines framing her mouth. The intervening two years had not been very kind, it appeared.

Her hands rose, bearing the Jagged Crown, and the eye of Hermaeus Mora tracked to it. The limb bent down like the stalk of a crane's neck.

"The Infinium is not my goal, Demon of Knowledge. I seek-"

"The past? You did not come here bearing that for a history lesson, mortal." The Daedric Prince was amused, his everywhere-timbre dancing on the edge of puckish good cheer.

"No," the Ambassador said, "the future."

The eye blinked, a ponderous movement of its lid squishing tightly together with a liquid sound. "The price of Knowing-to-be is dear, mortal. What would you give?"

Elenwen's response was instant, confident. "A servant. One to gather new knowledge, or fetch your books for you when your attention is gathered to other endeavors."

To his relief, Hermaeus Mora did not look in Holag's direction, but studied the Ambassador, and then began speaking again, as if their deal had been struck.

"Fire raining from above, men in steel and dragons falling from the sky. Voices shouting curses and glory-calls. A leader among them, wearing the Crown, with light in one hand and a sword in the other. A fallen cabal cursing the day. The burning of forests and conspirators alike. Cats dancing in the light of the moons. An ending of an Era, and the rebirth of an ancient bloodline."

The voice of the Daedric Prince fell into contemplative silence, and finally added. "I do not envy you, mortal. But then, I never have. While amusingly capable, your kind are impossibly frail. Beware the one who will wear the Crown."

"Who?" Elenwen asked. She struggled to make sense of the demon's words and she felt adrift in possible meanings, grasping for anything that would give her an advantage. "Who will be the High King?"

When he answered, Hermaeus Mora sounded bored, lethargic. "That, my dear, was not part of the deal. And you are out of things to trade. I do not want that crown. It has nothing I do not already know."

"Thank you," Elenwen said, turning away to head for the entrance. Her face put the lie to her calm tone. She was mixed parts confused and angry, and it showed on her features. "Take your price."

"Indeed," the demon said. A limb shot out from the mass, snared Holag in its coiling length, and pulled him towards the eye. The Orc let out a brief and terrified shriek that was quickly cut off as the demon's avatar dissolved, returning to the realm of Apocrypha.

Elenwen climbed from the sanctum into open air, her face a study in scorn and worry. The wind sent powdered snow across her face, blurring her vision. Pulling her hood up, the High Elf held the Jagged Crown before her, seeming to will it to rust and crumble. Anything would do, just to keep the vision her mind's eye formed from coming to pass.

Far off, a hollow sound broke the sky open, dove into an angry keening, and rose back up. A dragon, leagues distant perhaps, had let loose with a roar, the sound of its call echoing thinly over the watery ice-field.

Elenwen looked to the boat moored at the end of the floe, mulling over its small dark shape. She sighed, starting the short walk back to it.

"Damn you, Mora. You would have to take the closest of my servants."

End Chapter 3


	4. The Splinter of Doubt

Claiming an Empire

An Elder Scrolls Tale

By An Elder Scribe

Chapter 4: The Splinter of Doubt

Author's note: Apologies to any followers of this story; after the third chapter, I sort of lost the thread of where I mean to take this tale. I have since found it and will try my best to have chapters out at least one per week until…well, you'll see.

Road to Solitude

Late evening, 20th of Last Seed

The moons crept slowly across the night sky, the bottom edge of Secundus just barely touching the topmost spire of the Blue Palace as two figures exited the city's front gate. Pennons and streamers hung from the battlements and crenellations, their bright, festive hues dimmed and dulled by the advancing night.

"Mistress Vici's wedding will be an event to remember, to be sure," the Dragonborn said to his companion. His tone was affably light, but Delphine could hear the forced quality of it, the strain underlying it. The night had been long and tiresome, exacerbated by the futile searching for a thief that had long since disappeared.

Up the road came a traveler dressed almost entirely in black; hood and cloak, leathers, even the quiver and bow slung over the back were ebony-hued. The seeming hunter gave them a wide berth, but appeared unhurried, unburdened by the concern of passing a pair of strangers in the night. Torygar nodded to the person as they passed each other, but the hunter made no response, only kept walking towards the city gate.

"You're talking nonsense. Why in the darkest pits of Oblivion are you leaving _now_ of all times?" Delphine spoke with a modicum of restraint, but there was a hint of the stress the evening's previous events had lain upon her.

"There's only one option that come to mind," Torygar replied, abandoning his previous good-humor. "I'm going to see Paarthurnax."

Dephine stopped where she was for a moment, her slackened features resolving into a disbelieving, angry scowl. "Not this again. I hate to repeat myself, but are you out of your ever-loving _mind_?"

"I have to speak to him," Torygar said. He and Delphine had been arguing about this since shortly after the theft. "This is not a debate, it's a statement of fact."

"What you need to do is mobilize. We _need_ the crown," the Blades' grandmaster shot back. "If you mean to go through with your mad plan to be crowned high king, that is. Galivanting off to the mountain every time you meet a setback only makes you seem weak to the old lizard."

The Dragonborn chuckled softly. They both found the way to Katla's farmstead, abandoned, the cobbled road bereft of guards; they'd all taken up the cause of searching the whole of Solitude. Taking the reigns of his mount from the stable-boy, he stood adjusting the fit of the saddle. "How little you know. Mistress of an entire spy network and you cannot even begin to guess at Paarthurnax's true power." He turned to look at her, his brief and bitter mirth a memory, the knitted brows belying the grim duty now set in his mind. "Ages and Eras old, he has more wisdom than you, I, or even the Greybeards combined can fathom. It might be he can offer me-offer _us_ -some help in this area."

"Like what, some idiom of old? Suggest that you meditate? Teach you to fly? As well you could flap your arms and find as much success as finding the crown with his help." Delphine's acid tones told much of her disdain for the ancient dragon, and she had never even met him.

"That's enough. I'm going, Delphine. Come or stay, it's naught to me. If you mean to keep your oath to me, then come. But right now, it is the best thing I can think of to do. Some hope is miles better than none at all." Torygar's reply was by turns tired and angry. Their old feud over the necessity that Paarthurnax should be ended still stood on bitter ground, it seemed, but the Dragonborn had had a craw-full of her bilious assertions and could stomach it no more. "I would much prefer that you accompany me. The mountain is painfully beautiful, but ultimately a lonely approach to the temple."

The Breton woman scowled at her charge, this man who would be king, who shared her stare in stolid silence. With a muttered curse, she went off to collect her own horse. "Be damned if I let you wander off on your own again, especially at a time like this."

Torygar smiled at her retreating back as she walked off and climbed into the saddle. The pair were shortly off, riding south and east towards Morthal and the lands beyond.

The Reach

23rd of Last Seed

Elenwen peered up at the approach to the cavern. Between was a sort of planky-town that spanned the shallow creek feeding into the river on the other side of the drop. Mist seemed to caress the piles and planks and the crude tents erected thereon, making a shadow-play of forms that moved hither and yon.

Despite the certainty that had gripped Elenwen before, she now felt a creeping dread, a misgiving that wrapped tendrils of doubt and not a little fear around her mind. Her own horse, stolen the night before, snorted and pawed the ground as if stating its dislike of the place.

The flight from the great Arch had been fueled by desperation, but this retreat south and west was the seed of a plan yet to even sprout, and already the Altmer felt the shreds of her certainty fraying even further. Only Hermaeus Mora's sideways-spoken prediction kept her from abandoning the plan altogether.

Before her, resting on the horn of the saddle, was the cursed Jagged Crown. Little more than a beaten-iron helm adorned with sections of jaw and teeth of an ancient dragon felled by King Harald himself, the thing had proven much more troublesome than the theft that had delivered it to her hands had been worth. A slight sneer curled her lips as she looked at it long and long.

Someone would wear the crown, of that there was no doubt. Someone powerful, by the very words of a Daedric Prince. But only if she _let_ it happen.

Plucking the crown off the horn and stowing it away, she urged her mount forward, up the Karthspire road.

A cry went up from the camp at her approach, and a bevvy of Forsworn, the wild natives of the Reach, sprinted afoot to meet her with weapons drawn and spells ready. Elenwen raised her arms in apparent surrender and spoke before they were a handful of yards distant.

"Reachmen! I come in peace. I've a desire to speak with your chieftain." That brought them up short. The lot of them were dressed in hides and feathers; men wore helms fashioned from elk's heads, women wore thorny twigs and large talons woven into their hair. All of them were armed with crude but wicked-looking arms of a sort, stone axes and flint-edged swords. One brutish looking fellow at the front of the pack turned and spoke to two others that leaned close.

Elenwen sat in silence as they briefly conversed. A haggish-looking woman pushed to the front of the bunch. She apparently meant to speak for them.

"What do you want, elf-witch? You come riding as pretty as pie and make a demand of us?" In truth, Elenwen had only requested to speak to whomever was in charge, but let that sit for now. The creature before her was both young and old, weather-worn and hardship-hardened, and yet she bore the vitality of youth. "Full of spit and vinegar," as the saying went.

Shrewdly, the Altmer replied, "I have a proposition for you. One that will benefit you and your ilk the Reach over."

The young-old Forsworn woman returned with, "What could you have that we'd want, witch? You've a way to make the sky rain red with Nord blood?" Elenwen smiled in the face of the Reach-woman's scorn.

"Why, yes, in fact. I have something that may do just that, indeed." The whole group of Forsworn looked up at her, agape.

Now she had their attention. Good.


End file.
